A whole bunch of mobile marketing information that I stole from people smarter than me

I think it was three years ago that I moderated a webinar with Michael Brenner where he listed mobile marketing as his big coming trend. I didn’t think anything of it for years. I just got an Iphone and Ipad and now I do everything mobile. I clear my inbox on my phone, I read blog posts on my Ipad. It’s one of those things where I just had to feel it. Now I get it. To you my b2b marketing friends, I give you this advice: Start with the mobile experience first when you build your emails, content, etc. Everyone tells you “be where your buyers are”, well they are on mobile.

I recently spoke at a couple webinars listed below where I felt it was important to talk mobile marketing. As a result, I ended up with some good info to pass along.

Basically, there is a ton of data that supports what any addicted smart phone user already knows. People are mobile as hell right now. Here are five facts about mobile I didn’t know until 2 weeks ago:

1. Last year’s mobile data traffic was eight times the size of the entire global Internet in 2000. via Cisco

2. Mobile video traffic exceeded 50 percent of all video traffic for the first time in 2011. via Cisco

3. By the end of 2012, the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the number of people on earth, and by 2016 there will be 1.4 mobile devices per capita. via Cisco

4. Nine in 10 young adults spend between one and five hours on their mobile devices daily. via Mashable

There are some really interesting tips that I gathered primarily from two great blog posts from @wittlake and @Corey_bos which you should click to read. I was relieved to find that we aren’t really talking about boiling the ocean for b2b marketers to get caught up in mobile. Actually, you can basically boil down the “to-do’s” into 2 groups (email and web design):

3.Then do your best to create a pleasant mobile reading experience by offering both plan text and HTML versions of your email,

4.Use very descriptive alt text in case your images don’t display

5. Keep your message brief

Optimize the entire online user experience:

It’s all about responsive design. Here is Eric Wittlake on the topics: “Responsive design delivers a page that is appropriately laid out for every browser, based on the individual device, screen size, orientation and more. Google is encouraging responsive design, further solidifying it as a best practice all B2B companies should be considering in their mobile plans.” As I use my smart phone more and more, I have come to learn that my “eject” button is quicker than ever. If you aren’t viewable, I don’t force it — I leave. That means all web pages, landing pages, etc that your buyers will see and touch need to be optimized for viewing or they will be gone too.